


it haunts me at night

by its_marchie



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, M/M, Trigger Warnings, it gets really sad but then happier at the end, reference/implication of suicide, there will be a happy porn sequel mkay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-10 11:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3288335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_marchie/pseuds/its_marchie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a ghost in my bedroom, it haunts me at night<br/>I've asked him to leave, but he keeps stopping by<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	it haunts me at night

**Author's Note:**

> A random story that I came up with at 1:45 AM a few days ago because I was having a Jack Zimmermann kind of night.
> 
> Title from "Ghosts" by Mayday Parade. Beta'd by the amazing Sam aka tardistoasgard because we had an hours-long freakout session over OMGCP! Rated mature for alcohol abuse, references/implications of depression, contemplation/reference to suicide, and anxiety.

Jack isn't sure what exactly he sees that night.

          It's two-thirty AM and everyone else is passed out in their respective rooms for once. God fucking bless that they all have early morning classes. Jack doesn't necessarily want to be left alone when these things happen; he isolates himself out of convenience for everyone else, thinking that if he decided to gush to Shitty or whoever the fuck was up at that ungodly hour about his "problems" or his "feelings," it would keep them up for longer. The fact is, Jack had forgotten what it was like for someone to listen to him because they genuinely _cared_ about him, not because someone was being paid to listen. Parse had never really been good at that; he struggled with ADD, so serious conversation would never last for longer than a few minutes and then resume to him making various chirps aimed at Jack. The chirping was, thankfully, enough to distract him, but late at night while Parse laid next to him and curled at his side, the feeling of inadequacy would come creeping back. His chest would tighten, his head would swim, and he'd feel like vanishing all over again.

          He tiptoed carefully down the pine stairs of the Haus, figuring that if he paced downstairs nobody would wake up. As he reached the living room area, he noticed someone walk down the hall into the kitchen.

"Bittle?" He whispered after the person. Usually Eric would reply with, "You okay, Jack?" yet nothing but silence filled the empty kitchen.

"Bitty?" He whispered louder, calling his teammate by his nickname. Usually that elicited a faster response, but again, no voice acknowledged his presence. Jack began to feel uneasy, a different kind of uneasy than the kind he felt during one of his bouts of insomnia.

"Shits?" Maybe it was Shitty who, even though he always vehemently denied it, sometimes sleepwalked when he was stressed out. Again, the only sound responding to his inquiries was the sound of the ice maker in the fridge dumping fresh cubes into the dispenser. Jack was a thousand percent positive he saw someone- the medication fucked his appetite up and hell, even his sex drive, but it never made him hallucinate.

"Hello?"

"Jack?" He nearly leaped out of his pajamas when he heard the voice belonging to one Justin Oluransi, "The fuck're you doing, bro?"

"I was- um-" Jack stammered, fidgeting with the drawstrings on his hoodie. _Avoid the question_ , "What exactly are you doing down here?"

"Needed a break from my research paper," Ransom walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with water.

"Gotcha."

"Hey, Cap?" Ransom turned to Jack, his voice soft, "Try to get some sleep, eh? We're concerned as fuck for you and we wanna make sure you're okay. Bits is noticing, too."

Jack's pulse jumped suddenly at the mention of Bitty. Is that why he had begun midnight baking?

"Alright, Rans, I'll try. And this may be a weird question, but were you down here before me?"

"Nope. I came down when you were calling for Shitty which, by the way bro, was super weird considering Shitty left to help Lardo with her sculpture midterm."

Jack froze. He could feel the colour leave his cheeks, the warmth disappearing from his body and replaced with a cold sweat that made his forehead feel clammy. He knew his d-men were asleep (soundly, by Jenny and Mandy's complaints of his incessant snoring), apparently Shitty was not even in the Haus, and Bitty was knocked the eff out after five classes, a test, and helping the French Club whip up some crepes for their Cooking and Culture meeting.

"You okay, Jack? You look like you just saw a ghost."

"Yeah, uh, yes. I'm fine. I'm headed to bed."

As Jack curled up under the covers, he kept replaying what he had seen downstairs.

Ransom asked if he saw a ghost. Maybe he had.

         Jack began seeing the mysterious figure around more over the next few weeks: he saw it while studying for his preliminary history exam, drawing up plays, even hanging around with Shitty. Unlike Jenny and Mandy, though, this ghost wasn't visible to everyone else and it didn't speak. It would hang around in the same places as Jack while still maintaining a considerable distance between them. Jack was having another rough night this time, too. Tonight’s special on the vast menu of Anxiety was flashbacks of the sanitized room of the rehab centre in Ontario with his parents huddled into a corner. The look on his mother's face was heartbreaking, but seeing his father look as worn out as he had crushed Jack's soul. Bob never was one to look his age, even for a hockey player who’d played as long as he had. But in that bright corner of the whitewashed suite, he looked like the oldest man living. Tears blurred Jack’s vision and he looked up to prevent them from rolling down his sharp cheekbones. As he gazed to the window, he saw the figure again.

"Hey," he called to the figure. It didn't move.

"Hey!" He said more forcefully, anger bubbling in his blood, "What do you want?!"

The thing turned around and stared at him, making the captain feel an unexplained pang of unconscionable sadness. Just as it began to move forward, a knock came at the door.

"Jack?" He recognized the Southern drawl as Bitty's, "Can I come in?"

Jack wiped away the last of the tear tracks on his cheeks. "Yeah."

"I heard you yelling and I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you okay?"

"Yeah I-" He turned to glance at the window where the figure no longer remained, "I'm fine. You can, uh, sit down." Bitty made his way to the edge of Jack's bed and cautiously sat down, brow furrowed in worry. He was in a pair of loose-fitting sweats and a threadbare Madison Football tee, his voice thick with sleep. He must have heard Jack pacing. _Fuck, not again_.

"Are you having a not-so-good night again?" Eric gradually slid closer to him. Jack almost started to cry again- the other guys seemed to ask him if he was having another attack or was panicking, and those phrases scared him shitless. Bitty was just so gentle about approaching Jack when he was feeling more anxious than normal. It never ceased to amaze him that this guy he'd treated so awfully last year could just let it all go.

"I guess."

"So," Bitty adjusted himself so he was facing Jack directly, "Do you wanna tell me why you were yelling? I'd ask about what set this off in the first place, but I don't wanna make you more upset. y'know?"

For some unexplained reason, Jack's heart fluttered in a way that completely differed from an anxiety palpitation.

"It's really nothing. Just thinking out loud. Therapist said it'd be good for me." Which wasn't entirely a lie; Dr Bates had said that externalizing negative thoughts made them easier to deal with, like he had control over which thoughts entered his head. But he couldn't just tell Bitty, ‘Hey, so I think there might be a ghost following me around the Haus but you can't see it.’ So he covered his tracks with a little white lie.

"Oh. Okay," Bitty stood, "Try to sleep, okay? It's almost two. If you need anything, I'm down the hall." Jack smiled sadly after Bitty as he carefully shut the door.

        ~*~*~*~

           Samwell lost to UConn the next night on a stupid penalty in overtime that landed Jack in the penalty box. He had a horrible feeling as soon as the whistle blew that the game would be over soon, and not favouring their team. Sure enough, a minute and fourteen seconds into OT, a left wing sniped Chowder top shelf gloveside and that was it. The game was over.

The locker room was filled with a painful silence, almost as painful as the one after the crushing loss in the playoffs the previous year. Chowder was inconsolable, even with Nursey and Dex crowded around him telling him that he shouldn't be so hard on himself, that these things happen. Jack couldn't even look at him; just the thought of anyone, especially one of the frogs, blaming themselves for his mistake made his arm tingle, threatening another attack. Bitty gave Jack an ‘I'm sorry’ look, but Jack once again had to force himself to keep from crying or punching a wall by tying his shoelaces extra tightly and boarding the bus. The closest person to him on the ride back sat four rows away.

           Jack was plagued by night terrors during the first attempt he made at going to sleep. He paced around his room some more (Shitty decided to stay with Lardo and let him have some space), but when the Thoughts With A Capital T kept rearing their ugly heads, Jack curled in on himself in the corner of the room. The door squeaked open and Jack collected himself, thinking that Shitty had come back early. What he saw startled him.

The ghost had returned again, but this time, it was perched on the end of his bed. As he examined it more carefully, the figure became more prominent. The "it" was, in fact, a "she," judging by her physical appearance. She wasn't white and glowing, but she was somewhat out of focus, unlike what Jenny and Mandy were.

"I thought I told you to fucking leave," Jack growled. She stared back, washed-out brown eyes still locked on his huddled body.

"Can you even bother to answer me?!"

"I'm keeping you company," she answered simply, as if having a fucking ghost come to you in the night and start a discussion with you is normal.

"Why? And who are you? The only ghosts here are Mandy and Jenny," he uncurled and hoisted himself up off the floor to grab Shitty's desk chair.

"I'm Gwen. I used to go to Samwell, too. They don't really know about me, they just know I exist. I kind of stay away from everyone, including them," Gwen's voice had taken on a wistful, depressed tone that Jack was all too familiar with.

"I'm Jack, by the way."

"I know."

“So," he moved closer in the rolling chair, "Why are you here? And why can't everyone else hear or see you?"

Gwen sighed, "I'm here for the same reason Mandy and Jenny are. I died here."

"Were you in their sorority?"

"No. I was a junior in 2007. My step-brother was on the hockey team. Left wing, if I remember correctly."

"So, how exactly did you end up...y’know...?" Jack thought he had stepped out of bounds on this one and he fully expected Gwen to vanish. He hated when prying eyes would shove a microphone in his face and ask how rehab was going or how he felt missing the draft while his partner in crime went first overall. But instead of disappearing, Gwen crossed her legs and sighed.

          "Like you, I held a big fucking secret. I was depressed, like, clinically diagnosed, but people didn't see it because I was captain of the colour guard and dating a hockey player at Northeastern . Some shit happened to me in my life that nobody should have to go through and instead of talking about how I felt to some of my friends or a fucking DOCTOR, I just kinda forced it out, pretended it wasn't there. What would my parents have said? What would people think if they found out I went to a psychiatrist and God forbid taken medication? So I started drinking because being drunk helped me escape my problems. And suddenly, I needed a shot before class or before a test. Maybe even before a game I performed at. My friends gradually stopped talking to me because I was the only one who didn't notice that I was a fucking alcoholic at age twenty. When my parents found out and insisted on taking me to a psych ward, I was done. I ended it all in that bathtub," she motioned to Jack's bathroom, "The Haus had to be shut down for two years while Samwell paid MILLIONS for on-campus mental health clinics and counselors. It sucks that my suicide was what it took for that to happen, but-" she choked on a sob, "at least it doesn't have to happen again."

It was a fucking sad story, but what made it one hundred times worse was that she was _just like him_. People thought she had the world and more, that there was nothing to be upset about, when in fact she was crumbling in on herself. Jack had definitely thought about it before, but seeing the remains of a person who actually went through with it made him really fucking glad he never did.

"So, Jack, I hang around you because I don't want you ending up like this. And I watch you because it's like watching what my life could have been if I actually listened to the people who were trying to help me the most."

"But," Jack paused, "why now? Why didn't I see you before?"

"Because I used to be angry at you. Angry that you were surrounded by people who love you and didn't talk to them. I may have scared that Canadian defenceman into coming downstairs for a glass of water, but that little blond kid across the hall? I don’t need to do jack shit. He checks on you because he's fucking concerned for you, okay? Jack, if I were you, I'd open up to him because he's willing to listen."

          He leaned back in the chair and scrubbed his face with his left hand. That was another thing Jack was freaked out over; he _liked_ Bittle. And that scared him almost as much as failing to live up to his father's expectations. It's not that he was afraid of liking a guy (please, an unwritten code in Juniors forces you to explore all angles of your already malleable sexual identity), but rather he was afraid of his own feelings. Hurting Eric was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, but he just couldn't put all of his emotional baggage onto this boy who, up until spring semester last year, he was sure he hated. It wasn't fair to the team and it wasn't fair to him.

"I know you're having an issue with this, but he already spends a shit ton of time with you. If he couldn't handle it, I'm pretty sure he would've given up a while ago, or not even tried in the first place,” Gwen stretched her arms to the ceiling and yawned.

“God, I can’t think about this right now,” Jack groaned and buried his face in his hands, which had begun shaking viciously again. A spot of frigid air pooled on the top of his shoulder as Gwen touched him, her frigid hand chilling Jack to the bone.

“Shh, it’s okay. You can do this, alright? Just remember- he fucking cares and wants to help. Give him a shot, eh?” Her voice had become less focused, almost as if the wind was carrying it. She backed away from the taller man and headed for his bedroom door.

“Okay,” he nodded and watched her vanish beyond the threshold of his door, “I can do this.”

~*~*~*~

He most certainly could not do this.

He attempted to approach Bitty throughout the week; hell, he even agreed to get one of those fattening yet delicious pumpkin whatevers from Starbucks with Eric to maybe talk to him about... _feelings_. Jack still shuddered when he thought about discussing his private life to anyone. But at least it was Bitty; he could handle Bitty, but handling his situation with anyone else? That was a No with a capital fucking N. The conversation had to be addressed carefully, and his teammates were for anything BUT addressing things carefully. His parents didn’t like to hear about the negatives, especially those involving him taking one step back in his progress. More often than not it was a conversation that involved things that threatened his future drafting. Bittle _had_ to be the one to listen.

“Hey, Bittle?” He finally mustered up enough courage and energy to ask one afternoon while the team was getting undressed in their stalls after a productive skate.

“Yeah, Jack?” Bitty met his gaze, bright red cheeks contrasting starkly with his flaxen hair. He was adorable.

“Um, I was wondering if, maybe, we-” Jack was interrupted by Chowder walking over to Bitty and chattering his normal Chowder-Babble. He loved the kid, but Christ, he needed to be quiet for a few minutes. Sighing, he stuffed his water bottle into his duffel and headed out. Today wouldn’t be the day.

When he returned to the Haus, he could feel Gwen glaring at him.

“Listen, I tried, okay? ‘S not my fault that our conversation was hijacked,” Jack rolled his eyes and threw himself on top of his sheets.

“Tried to do what?” Shitty popped his head over the rails of his lofted bed.

“It’s nothing, Shits.”

“Talking to yourself. I think you’ve gone to Patrick Roy-level intensity, brah,” Shitty turned back over and began criticizing some “abusive white pseudo-feminist trash” (Shitty’s words) novel by Lena Dunham. Another knock on his door startled him; he opened it to see a smiling Eric Bittle.

“Jack! Guess what?? The Swallow wants to do a piece on my baking!” He was practically vibrating with excitement.

“That’s great!” Jack couldn’t help but smile because even though he was frustrated as fuck, he was pretty sure Bittle was the human embodiment of a ray of sunshine.

“‘BOUT FUCKIN’ TIME!” Shitty crowed and accidentally threw the novel to the floor. Eric laughed, a light, bubbly sound that echoed through the Haus. Jack attempted not to laugh (he was brooding, what the fuck), but he chuckled as Shitty climbed down the ladder in his Wonder Woman boxer briefs, letting out a stream of profanity with every step he took.

Jack hadn’t even had a full conversation with Bitty yet and he was already in a better mood than he had been in for the past few months.

~*~*~*~

Jack was fuming; he’d been in a pretty piss-poor mood after a meeting turned into a shouting match with his agent that morning. He knew how the whole song and dance went: first, it was anger. Next, anxiety and isolation. Finally, depression. From thee time he left the rink, it was a waiting game. Shitty took the commuter rail back to Andover that weekend to attend his cousin’s stag party, so Jack was left alone in his room. Well, not completely alone. The anxiety, the White Elephant, took up most of the space and forced Jack into a corner. He missed dinner with the guys (Chinese food because it was a week after spring break and Lord knows Ransom and Holster were still hungover) and didn’t return to the ground floor until the smell of maple and dough snuck its way under the cracks of the warped door and made itself comfortable in his room.

“Bittle?” Jack peered into the kitchen. Eric was baking up a storm- oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were already stored in Ziplocs and three pies were cooling on the racks. The oven timer beeped, leading him to take a maple sugar-crusted pie out to rest.

“Oh! Jack!” He squeaked, “Did I wake you up?”

“No, I was just- what is all of this? It’s after midnight.”

“This? It’s baked goods, Jack. And I even made that pie you like so much!”

Bitty was way too peppy for it to be sincere. In almost two years of knowing him, Jack could spot stress-baking from a mile away.

“Bittle. Eric!” Jack raised his voice to be heard over the whirring of the handheld mixer that Bitty was basically stabbing into a bowl of pie filling.

“Yeah?” the smaller boy turned his head to Jack, who had forcefully unplugged the beaters.

“Do you want to tell me what all this-” he motioned to the miniature bakery Bitty had created- “is about?”

Bitty let out an exhausted sigh, “Jack, we need to talk.”

He gulped. He could feel it coming back: chest tightening, fingers numbing, pulse racing and thudding in his ears. Jack was surprised when he felt a warm hand on the top of his shoulder, spreading heat throughout his tired frame.

“Count to ten, ‘kay? Deep breath in for five, exhale for five. Can you do that for me?”

Jack nodded. _One, two, three, four, five_ \- pause- _one, two, three, four, five._

“So,” Jack sighed.

“So.”

“You wanted to talk?”  
“Yeah,” Bitty fidgeted, “are you alright?”

“Dumb question,” Jack laughed humourlessly. The other man looked down at his feet, “Bits, I didn’t mean-”

“You’re good, Jack. My feelings aren’t hurt. What’s been bothering you lately?”

It was Jack’s turn to fidget. He wanted to tell Bitty everything, but it was as if a brick wall had been constructed between his brain and his mouth. He wanted to say, “I’m scared, I’m upset, and I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing,” but he simply couldn’t make his vocal cords function.

“I’m stress-baking because I’m worried about you. You’re my teammate, my captain, and my friend and seeing you upset all the time is scary,” Bitty’s voice trembled ever so slightly, “And I made the pie so maybe you’d be tempted to come downstairs and not be alone.”

 _Gwen keeps me company_ , he thought, but pushed it out of his mind. Spending time with a ghost was like spending time alone, possibly even worse.

“Bittle, you know I don’t talk about this stuff.”

“Can you try?”

“It’s a long story,” tears prickled in Jack’s eyes and he quickly worked to blink them away, “I’m not sure you’ll want to listen to it all.”

Bitty returned to his seat with two pieces of maple sugar pie and a glass of water.

“We’ve got time.”

          For the next three hours, Bitty listened to Jack talk, throwing in the occasional noises of understanding or rubbing his back soothingly while the senior cried into his hands. Eric knew Jack struggled, but he didn’t know to the extent. Everything made sense now: the irritability, the quietness, the willingness to be completely and utterly alone. It made him cry, too: how could he watch Jack suffer and not make more of an effort to talk to him about it? Being a gay athlete was difficult, but at least it wasn’t a war where the only person he fought was himself,  a war that he could never win.  Bitty glanced at the wall to check the time and noticed a person leaning against the doorway. Jack felt Bitty stiffen and uncurled himself to look at the boy.

“You okay?” Jack sniffled.

“Call me a liar, but I swear I just saw someone in the doorway.”

Jack laughed among the sob caught in his throat.

          “It’s almost three. Do you wanna go to bed?” Bitty patted Jack’s knee.

“Mmm? Oh, I probably should. Eight AM ethics class,” Jack stood, joints popping ever so slightly. The two made their way silently up the stairs, pausing in the middle of the hallway.

“So, um, thanks for listening to all of that. Didn’t mean to put all of that on you,” Jack mumbled. Bitty lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Jack’s stiff frame, squeezing like he was attempting to wring the bad thoughts from his body. Jack decided to return the hug, leaning over to pull the southern boy to his chest.

“I’m here whenever you need me, Jack. You know that,” Bitty’s words were muffled by the fabric of Jack’s flannel.

“Sleep well,” Bitty called after they broke apart. Jack kicked off his sweats and yanked the covers over himself. He felt tired, but the kind of tired that arrives after a day on the beach or after a rigorous practice. Every muscle in his body seemed to melt into the plush mattress and he shut his eyes effortlessly. There were no night terrors, no midnight pacing sessions.

It was one of the best night’s sleeps Jack had in six months.

          The road to completely opening up to Bittle was a rocky one for sure, but his gentle words and ability to just _listen_ while not giving any advice or preach at him with ‘you should do this, you can’t say that’ bullshit made him exponentially more grateful he lived right across the hall. Every day after classes or practice, Jack would make his way to Bitty’s room where they’d lie on Bitty’s bed and just talk. Sometimes it’d be serious, Bitty staring intently at Jack as he talked about a conversation he had with his father or maybe he was feeling overwhelmed (especially when Kent visited). Other times, they talked about nothing in particular, like the girl with the tortoiseshell glasses that kept making eyes at Jack in the library when they would study together or the finer points of Beyoncé appreciation and being well-versed in pop culture.  

“Someone just tweeted you?” Jack raised an eyebrow as Bitty’s phone alerted him of a mention with a _ping!_

“Yeah! I’m gonna check it out right now,” he unlocked the screen of his iPhone and clicked on the push notification. Suddenly, his smile morphed into a slight frown.

“What did they say?”

“They asked how you dealt with your bad days and if any of us try to help you through it when you can’t do it alone. I dunno how comfortable tweeting-”

Jack snatched the phone from his friend’s hand and began to type.

“Jack! You can’t just hijack my phone and tweet for me!” He shrieked, clawing at his bedspread to get to Jack, who had already pressed the “Tweet” button.

“Jack, I swear if you chirped that person, I’m going to be so upset with you,” Bitty huffed as he yanked the iPhone from Jack’s firm grasp. He went to his profile and looked at “his” most recent tweet.

“ _@ERBittle15: @colberts_reports always helps to talk to a friend. Even when ur scared._ ”

Jack was positive he would receive an inevitable slap on his bicep, but when Bitty lifted his head, a smile the size of Georgia itself spread from cheek to cheek.

“Sorry for tweeting from your account,” Jack rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Bitty laughed once again (it was like his laughs were literal rays of sunshine or made of pixie dust or something).

“Of all the things to apologise for in this world, you choose to apologise for THAT? You’re an enigma, Jack Laurent Zimmermann.”

It wasn’t a sign that he was completely fixed. But it was a start.

          With a matchup between Samwell and Merrimack and the last non-wild card spot for playoffs hanging in the balance, Jack started seeing less of Bitty. He opted to meditate completely alone, to go into what Ransom and Holster called “Hockey Robot Reboot Mode.” Jack enjoyed playing hockey under this kind of pressure because it forced his anxiety into the recesses of his brain. He’d met Sidney Crosby at the Penguins youth hockey clinic and he told Jack, when he asked how he plays in Philadelphia without crying, “You gotta not think about it. Winning the game is more important than whatever problem you have on the outside world. Nobody can touch you here.”

And that’s precisely what Jack lived by. He had his share of problems in real life, but hockey wasn’t Real Life. Real Life meant that instead of hipchecking the shit out of some guy that chirped at you, you had to just ignore it and walk by. Real Life wasn’t nearly as gratifying as hockey- it just got in the way.

“Jack? Brah, it’s dinner time. I know you’re rebooting right now but you’re not fuckin’ Gandhi. No hunger strikes before the playoffs!” Shitty peeped his head into their room, where Jack sat on his bed with his head hung between his mountainous shoulders.

  
“Fine. I’ll be down,” the Canadian grumbled as he huffed a sigh.

Dinner conversation traditionally circumvented the elephant in the room: the upcoming game. Ransom and Holster threw grape tomatoes picked from their respective salads at each other because what else are college-level twelve year-olds supposed to do? Dex and Nursey were surprisingly civil to each other during dinner and Chowder nervously played with his hair. The veterans were relaxed for the most part (even Bitty, though he managed to nervous-bake them all a pecan pie. Nobody complained.) Tonight’s sleep was uneventful without even one dream to disturb Jack. Hockey Robot Reboot successful.

          The boys knew the second they hit the ice, they were going to dominate. Because of Jack’s budding NHL superstar status, the venue of choice for the Wild Card game was TD Garden. What’s more, the game would be _televised_. No pressure.

“‘Kay boys, I normally don’t pray before games, but everyone gather ‘round,” Holster motioned to everyone, who circled up around the spoked B, “Rans, would you do the honours?”

“Dear Hockey Gods, please let this night be totally ‘swawesome and let the refs not suck ass. Also, please watch over us and make sure we don’t get interviewed by Pierre McGuire.”

“Amen,” Shitty nodded. Murmurs of agreement circulated around the room as they prepared to hit the Garden ice; Ransom and Holster, being the token Bruins fans on the team, couldn't even hold still during the Anthem.

“Rans, how fucking _cool_ is this? Right?” Holster elbowed him just as Rene Rancourt finished his third fist pump.

“Dude. Totally ‘swawesome,” Ransom fistbumped him while he absorbed the sights and sounds of the Boston faithful.

           Jack was always calm and collected at the faceoff dot- this is where it became real. He won the faceoff clean, the puck rocketing to Ransom as he skated halfway to the net before dumping it in the corner. Jack knew Bitty was there, and Bitty knew Holster would take care of anybody who went near Bitty.

Except the six-foot-gigantic defenseman that Holster missed.

Jack couldn’t even watch; Bitty was going to be concussed by that check, maybe a broken rib would be a result. But he heard Ransom say, “Oh SHIT!” and he turned around. Bitty was still alive. Jack could exhale. His line skated off for a change and Shitty elbowed Bitty, yelling, “Bits, that was a goddamn motherfuckin’ work of ART. Jack,” he addressed the captain, “did you fuckin’ SEE this kid?”

“What happened?” Lardo shoved her iPad in front of his face and watched as Bitty fucking danced around the impending check and threw the puck on net that led to a second scoring opportunity by Kenzo. He couldn't believe it. He _couldn't believe it_.

“Bittle, you- holy shit,” Jack couldn't even form a complete sentence. That play was indescribably beautiful. Even covered by a face cage and its shadow, he could see a blush spread across his winger’s face. It made Jack smile even broader. He turned to face the action on the ice just as Shitty snuck a puck through Merrimack’s goalie’s five-hole, putting Samwell up 1-0 with four minutes left in the period. The bench cheered, Ransom and a few of the other guys banging their sticks on the floor. The buzzer sounded, marking the end of first period. Everyone was all smiles heading back to the locker room.

“Jack!” a voice called to him as he discarded his pads into his stall. Jack walked to the hallway and turned toward the direction of the familiar voice. When he noticed who called him, his stomach dropped to the floor.

“Hi, Papa.”

          He desperately wished he was literally _anywhere else_. Knowing his father was present at one of his sporting events raised his blood pressure enough, but actually being forced to interact with him after a decent first period in a crucial game made it increasingly difficult to breathe.

“How are you?” he asked excitedly.

“Good.” _Lie._ Unless “dying on the inside” meant “good.”

“Jack? Nursey’s looking-” a sweating Eric Bittle jogged out of the locker room and spotted the Zimmermanns. _God bless you, Bittle. God bless you_ , Jack thought and mentally exhaled a sigh of relief.

“There he is! Jeff Skinner incarnate, eh?” Bob patted Bitty on the shoulder amiably. Bitty glanced at him, then Jack, then back to him.

He smiled uncomfortably, “I wouldn’t say THAT. Jack’s been helping my board play.”

“It definitely shows! Maybe you can teach him how to skate like you!” Bob chuckled. Another nervous smile from Bitty. A deepening frown from Jack.  

“Alright, well, I think Coach is gonna wanna discuss strategy with us in a bit. C’mon,” Eric motioned for Jack to follow him, “It was real nice seeing you, Mr. Zimmermann!”

“You too, Eric! Good luck, boys! And Jacky- _marquez un but, non?_ ”

The captain power walked into the room just before jerseys and equipment  were returned to the stalls. He felt the anxiety shoving its way to the forefront of his brain, through the hockey block he had so carefully constructed over the past week began to crumble.

“Hey, look at me,” Bitty nudged him, “you can do this. We can do this. We’ll talk at the Haus over a piece of victory pie, ‘kay?” The boy’s chocolate eyes were filled with worry and began to water. Jack gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Remember, inhale and exhale,” he rested a hand on Jack’s shoulder, right over the “1.”

“Got it.”

Coach made his way to the centre of the room. It was time again to leave behind Real Life. Thank God.

 

~*~*~*~

The next night, the Haus was crammed with Wellies and guests celebrating an extremely impressive 5-3 win over Merrimack. It was official- the Samwell men’s hockey team was headed to the NCAA hockey playoffs.

“Alright, Lardo and gentlemen,” Shitty donned his tie dye OBEY tank and aviator sunglasses, “protocol for tonight is as follows. Designate charging stations that are NOT in bedrooms, preferably in the kitchen with power strips. Two, lock ALL bedroom doors. Three, put out more trash cans and Stop n Shop bags so people have somethin’ to blow chunks into that ISN’T my comforter for the tenth fucking time. Questions?”

“Uh,” Chowder raised his hand.

“Yes, Left Shark?”

“Where’s Jack?”

          The room fell silent. That was the Billion Dollar Question of the night. Since their return, nobody had seen Jack. Bitty couldn’t coax him out of his room with begging; even pie wouldn’t make him leave. The door was kept locked most of the time except for when Shitty forced Dex to pick the lock. Truth is, Jack was drowning. Drowning in self-doubt, drowning under the microscope of his father, Every breath he took was a labour, and when he thought he had breathing room, he ended up inhaling more liquid guilt. And Bittle, he let him down. The one person he could trust to listen and not suggest, the person who would spend hours talking about everything and nothing with him that Jack enjoyed because he _liked him_. He refused to talk to the Georgia boy because he couldn’t face him. Talking to him would force him to relive the semi-public inadvertent humiliation from his father, the, “Score a goal, eh?” before reentering the locker room. He was self-destructing and he wouldn’t let anyone press the “STOP” button.

          Jack could hear the party downstairs and the hundreds of people enjoying themselves because they could _afford to_. Jack never had the luxury of truly enjoying himself, not with the constant internal warfare keeping him up at night. The attack started as usual, but a wave of intense aggression and depression washed over him, one stronger than any other he had i  the past few months.  
“Jack?” Gwen appeared in front of the bed where Jack was curled up, chest-wracking sobs making his toned frame shake uncontrollably.

"I- I can't keep doing this," he whispered.

“Doing what?”

“Everything,” he motioned around, "I'm suffocating."

“No, please don’t think that!” Gwen’s tone had turned frantic, “All those people down there, they need you!” Jack shoved past her and dragged himself to the bathroom. Looking at himself in the mirror, the reflection was unrecognizable. The reflection’s cheeks were hollow and bags formed under his crystal blue eyes. His eyes were washed out and dull with exhaustion. They were the eyes that belonged to someone with the strength of the world on his shoulders and had nobody to help him carry it. Except he did. He _used_ to.

           The medicine cabinet opened with a barely audible squeak as Jack robotically yanked open the door.

“Don’t fucking do it-”

“Leave me the fuck alone.”

Holster’s Vicoden from his wisdom teeth removal, his own Lexapro, and a few of Parse’s Vyvanse that he left when he visited sat on the narrow shelf, eye level with the forward. It was easy to break, easy to head downstairs, grab a shot of tequila, and end it. He opened each pill bottle and mentally prepared himself to-

“JACK!” someone was pounding on the door. Bittle.

“JACK, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” he screamed again, pushing all of his weight into the door and making it crack.

Jack was positive he’d locked himself in, yet within a heartbeat, Bitty appeared in the bathroom and flung himself around Jack.

“Are you okay? God, tell me you’re okay,” he was smoothing down Jack’s hair and cradling his face.

“Yeah,” Jack was sobbing, full-on weeping into Bitty’s shoulder. He glanced at the vanity, noticing the opened bottles.

“Oh God, Jack. You’re okay, I got you.”

“I messed up, I messed up.”

“Did you take any?” Bitty drew a breath, preparing for the worst. However, Jack shook his head in declination.

“Look at me,” he took Jack’s chin in his right hand. His eyes appeared to become even bluer and _Jesus_ it made Bitty weak, “I’m proud of you.”

“B-but how? I f-fucked up,” Jack tried to catch his breath.

“You said you didn’t take any of those pills? That’s incredible. You’re incredible,” a small smile played at Eric’s lips. Without thinking, Jack leaned over and pressed his lips to Bitty’s. It was soft, chaste at first, Jack testing his threshold (this was bold for him, especially after what he endured not six minutes ago.) Bitty pulled Jack closer, kissing him in earnest, tasting the salty remains of Jack’s tears on his lips. Jack grabbed onto his shirt, but not in a sexual way; it was as if he was holding tightly to prevent from being swept into an invisible hurricane. Jack wasn’t used to being the one held, and he was amazed that a boy exponentially shorter and lighter and more svelte than he could make him feel so much smaller, more vulnerable.

“Shhhh, you’re okay,” Bitty whispered as he rubbed his back, “Let’s get this cleaned up, yeah?” The bottles were then capped and shoved deep into the back of the cabinet. Another knock at the door made the two jump as Bitty opened the door. Shitty, Ransom, and Holster crowded at the opening, all holding cups of (presumably) beer.

“Is Jack okay?” Shitty peered into the room where Jack had begun changing into a white V neck, “We’re fuckin’ worried about him.”

“Yeah, we were just talking,” Bitty smiled. Jack walked over to them, wrapping an arm around Bitty’s waist. Ransom raised an eyebrow and smirked at the gesture.

“Talking, eh?” he grinned.

“Shut up,” Jack laughed and jokingly gave his arm a punch, “Let’s go.”

As the group smiled at him and headed downstairs, Bitty turned to Jack and whispered, “Are you having another not good night?”

“You know what,” Jack kissed Bitty’s forehead, “it’s not so bad right now.”

~*~*~*~

 

 

**  
**  



End file.
